Early adopter here, initial 2012 Oculus Rift Kickstarter backer, I own all the headsets. My excitement has all but died down in regards to the current generation of VR. Mostly, I find the hardware cumbersome and clunky and the games to be too same-y (teleportation galore) or unpolished.
The absolute best experience I had in VR was playing Half-Life 2 back in 2013, with terrible resolution and tracking, but it was so immersive I could barely contain myself.
Now though, that I'm no longer wowed just by "being there", the act of strapping into VR is so cumbersome, the software is buggy at times, the cable is annoying, the headset is heavy, hot, doesn't work well with glasses etc.
However, I'm still as excited for VR as I was in the beginning in regards to the technology. Give me a lighter headset, 100% wireless and great handtracking and finally some long, immersive games (can be ports, that's fine for me) and I'm ready to shell out money again.
As it stands today though, my VR hype is on hibernation until the next gen rolls around.
Valve are the ones who have dropped the ball. They had all the cards lined up. Killer IP that would make people buy hardware if used correctly (HL3, Portal 3). Probably the best tech currently available (Vive). The biggest PC gaming storefront (Steam). Their own OS. Each and every one of these components, with the exception of Steam, was neglected. They had the future of PC gaming right there ready to grab... and did essentially nothing with it. It may not be too late but I think Valve needs an organisational restructuring if they want to pick up their pieces. If they don't it's very likely that they loose most of their revenue in the next 10 years, because even Steam needs killer exclusive content, i.e. content that cannot be licensed on another online platform, which soon will only be Valve games.
Similar experience here. I was an early adopter, 2012 rift backer and a major proponent of the technology. I jumped on the VR band wagon hard, and now, am shocked by my own disinterest in the space. Simply put - no game has really kept my interest. Most feel unpolished, and very limited. What you gain in VR immersion, you lose in gameplay. Either the immersion needs to be PERFECT, or the gameplay needs to be much, much better.
As I see it, there are some technical (even physiological?) hurdles, that they need to overcome.
1) "Teleport to move" is horrible, and sucks the feeling of immersion right out of the VR experience. Sadly, true "walking" with horizontal movement without accompanying angular momentum causes nausea in most people - hence teleporting as a solution. This as I understand it is a physiological system that is at odds with the VR world and while not everyone experiences it most do.
2) The resolution. It's hard to feel immersed in the world when it's so blurry. This is especially true for VR. VRs selling point IS immersion which IMO is an all-or-nothing experience. A blurry view detracts from feeling immersed in the world.
I have a Vive, and have surprised myself with how little I play it.
The game Fantastic Contraption was illuminating for me. I had played many tens of hours of the original. In VR I was amazed at how it looked and felt. Solving the first couple challenges was a lot of fun - just watching the machines run was great.
I started to realize a flaw though. A machine I could build in seconds by stretching my fingers a few inches across a keyboard and mouse took ten or twenty times as long in VR, and involved squatting, walking, grabbing, holding, etc.
There's a Perry Bible Fellowship comic of a child in a VR suit, clutching his simulated wounds while saying "Cool!" That comic is similar to my experience. Do we really want to experience things like this? (Tedium or pain)
Same for me, though a huge factor in my "re-entry" threshold is resolution.
I really do enjoy VR when I get around to playing it, but all I have is presence, but in a world that not particularly beautiful.
My favorite VR title is Elite: Dangerous, but while it's absolutely beautiful outside of VR, in VR it's rather....blurry. When in-VR had the detail of out-of-VR, the presence may be more meaningful. (But that'll be a while).
I can't speak from ever using a proper current headset like Vive or Oculus, but I have done some (very short-term) experimenting with Google Cardboard sets and Oculus/Vive emulation software that pipes the display over the local network to the phone-headset.
With some of that porting/emulation software I was able to play some SteamVR and other games. As a control I just used an Xbox 360 USB controller and the results surprised me.
Now working with a G Cardboard set isn't fun for very long, but the way that a few games translated was surprisingly good, as long as you're happy to not have the full experience. I found the headset was a lot of fun as a change of perspective.
The games I recall in particular being pretty good were GTA V and Skyrim (though I think Skyrim had a little bit of a perspective offset issue, but I didn't really tweak it). For native VR apps I tried ADR1FT (http://store.steampowered.com/app/300060/ADR1FT/) which was pretty good as well.
I imagine trying this with a proper headset work work far better and be more comfortable than my experience, but like I said I haven't worked with one.
A conclusion I made though was that I really didn't mind using the controller as I would on a console.
The real thing holding back the Vive though is not any of that. It's the small room. Every game has to operate from a very tiny room, and most game creators have not been able to do that effectively.
If we can figure out how to make game worlds bigger, perhaps even with AR, then we will probably have a lot more interesting things to do.
The article is long-winded, and a bit patronizing(1), but it seems to generally be saying that "VR is going to drop off in popularity in the near future, and may never become popular again".
I don't think this will be the case.
A few decades ago, you could experience VR of a similar nature as you can today ... if you happened to have an in with a nearby university research lab, with a setup space with carefully calibrated sensors, hundreds of thousands of dollars of computers, projectors, and other equipment.
Now-a-days, you can experience that VR with about $2,000 worth of computer + headset, and about as much setup difficulty as a home theater system. This is _massively_ more accessible than it was.
It's certainly not perfect. $2,000 is still a lot of money, and 550 grams is a lot of weight to put on your face.
But, even if it's not a smashing consumer success at the moment, the number of developers, artists, and other creatives who have access to the tools of VR development, and the size of the potential audience, are several orders of magnitude larger than they were just a decade ago.
And, really, if the biggest complaints about VR headsets are that they're too heavy, too expensive, and they look dorky, then I'd say VR's already won, one way or another. Technology has had this weird habit of getting smaller and cheaper.
The hype may cool off, but I don't think there's going to be much slowing of developer behavior or consumer behavior in the near future, and new headset models coming out will just slowly ramp up enthusiasm.
(1) but seriously, this author is really really concerned about how un-cool the headset makes you look, as if people staring intently at a movie screen, or play, or classical music concert are that much more photogenic.
I run a VR/AR-focused VC firm (Presence Capital). We've done 30+ investments in this space, so you can say that we believe in the long-term potential of VR. Even given that, we're bearish on how quickly there will be a profitable/sustainable VR consumer business and have advised most of our portfolio companies targeting consumers to keep burn low.
That being said, this article and most of the comments here are taking a singular worldview: consumer-focused VR for a western market. VR is a tool, not an industry. Context on use is required to assess traction.
VR for B2B or enterprises can make money today and doesn't require mass-consumer adoption. If you make someone 10x more effective at their job (tools for sales people: OssoVR) or onboard employees faster (training: STRIVR), you can overcome the cost and rough edges on the hardware and have an ROI to justify the cost of the system.
In Asia (and increasingly in the west), VR-arcades are going to be how most consumers first experience high-end PC VR. Culturally, people there are already used to going to internet cafe's to use computers by the hour and seek out 3rd spaces. VR-by-the-hour rooms fit this mold. Additionally, the short length of most VR experiences makes it easy to have a 15-20 minute session and not be disappointed by the lack of content. IMAX is starting to open multiple VR centers and the word within the industry is that the VR Zones opened by Namco in Tokyo are currently profitable.
> this article and most of the comments here are taking a singular worldview: consumer-focused VR for a western market
Even narrower than that: game VR; on HMDs without (usable) cameras; using particular software stacks.
The usual way I use my Vive, is on an old laptop with integrated graphics, doing ducktaped-on camera-passthrough AR, at 30 fps, in coffeehouses and conference rooms... Let's just say that many people are so focused on the gaming market, that they're unable to see anything else.
I've been through the mass adoption of PC's, the internet and web, cell phones, tablets and touch phones, and now here's consumer VR/AR. I've kind of given up hope of seeing intelligent analysis in the popular press during transitions.
Still, I was surprised by just how bad this article was. Isn't TC based in SV? I'd have thought the author could find people to do a sanity check. Misconceptions like drawing a hard VR vs AR distinction suggests that didn't happen. One can certainly make an argument for a slow takeoff. Even for a very slow and multi-phase one. But this article wasn't that. Perhaps I've just been unlucky to see this post before HN buries it.
The 'singular worldview' is the multibillion dollar market that consumer represents and that makes people put large sums into VC funds. A $100M market that consists of niche applications is far less interesting. The hype was astronomical, so the resultant backlash is of course well-deserved.
Since I sense this is the perfect time to offer a half-baked eulogy, let me offer my half-baked theory:
I think it was McLuhan who said that each new medium begins by imitating the old. e.g - The first television programs were basically radio broadcasts with an image of a talking head. It took a while for tv to break out and capitalize on the features of the new medium.
VR was always going to be measured by gaming. But its well-documented problem was that a very large subsection of games (1st person) have a considerable barf factor for a considerable section of the customer base.
So VR may have had great future potential for new avenues in gaming, but it was hamstrung by its weakenesses for existing games.
People got too caught up with possibilites to objectively look at how sucky it was right now.
It would be like if the first TV programs were barely audible but they had images.
VR thus far has been a bit of a step back. Devs have for a long time been under the impression that tech > gameplay (which is dumb when you think about it), and now a lot of devs are under the impression that doing something in VR excuses games not getting the basics right. The fun part is the studios who are used throwing 100 artists at a job pumping out the highest detail models, but that doesn't work so well, so they're either gonna go back to the basics or keep floundering.
The best games I've played in VR have been ports, and they're just as enjoyable without VR and you aren't hot and sweaty after 5 minutes.
VR will have its breakthrough as soon as it makes porn available in a way that makes you feel like being "there" or involved. Simple as that. Technology is driven by war and porn.
There seems to be a trade-off between immersion and casual-ness of the game, and I'm not sure people are that dedicated to immersion to want to trade-it off long-term:
- Wanting to slouch on the couch without it affecting your gameplay
- Wanting to pick up your cup of tea or soda in slow moments in the game
- Wanting to hear & see if other members of the family have got home
- Not wanting to look like an idiot with a thing on your head making strange in-game movements
- Feeling antisocial because as you only have one head-set others in the room can't see what you're doing (making it feel antisocial to go into that world)
We're pretty good at getting "immersed" in things without VR, so I wonder if the immersion gains just aren't worth the social & convenience costs (as well as the real costs) to most people. A little like even if GOT was on at the local IMAX, the vast majority of people would probably still watch it on their smaller screens at home. Maybe even on their tiny phones and iPads...
> - Wanting to slouch on the couch without it affecting your gameplay
You can easily play some games sitting, but still you can't do no exercise. That's a plus: a friend I played frequently with has lost more weight playing than with any other method. (for most people exercising isn't useful for losing weight but it has many benefits for the brain)
> - Wanting to pick up your cup of tea or soda in slow moments in the game
I've done that. With a bottle or a cup with a straw. The vive camera makes it easy.
> - Wanting to hear & see if other members of the family have got home
It depends on which headset are you using and how much noise people makes coming home. I usually do hear them.
> - Not wanting to look like an idiot with a thing on your head making strange in-game movements
> - Feeling antisocial because as you only have one head-set others in the room can't see what you're doing (making it feel antisocial to go into that world)
People _can_ see what are you doing with a correctly positioned screen. In any case those problems are temporary and sounds easy to solve. I'm not very social myself but I want to make a SteamVR "intercommunicator" to talk with people IRL without losing immersion (or maybe even making it more immersive).
- I already do a lot of sitting VR when tired/feet hurt. You're not gonna play the same game but a lot of the best experiences (cockpit based) are better sitting anyway.
- I do that aswell but arguably it's more precarious. I advise investing in a tumbler/thermos :)
- I exclusively use open headphones, the ones on the oculus are too and I can hear if someone is even standing in the corridor looking at me from the accoustic change. Closed headphones make me feel very uncomfortable and antisocial anyway.
- Heh, I'm playing, don't care about my appearance.
- On this point especially I must strongly disagree. Nothing has brought people around my gaming setup more than a VR HMD. And every game I played properly showed the player's view in a separate window and handled audio mirroring perfectly. Some games even allow for different spectator cameras, or smoothed up motions.
We lack the deep games we're accustomed to in traditional gaming. For myself and many, one of the best experience has been Doom 3 BFG VR. Tells you how desperately we need a proper "full" game with good mc support. Once those start coming out I expect the whole experience to be vastly different.
I don't really understand why they play up the current state of AR. To me, it seems that AR is a fundamentally harder problem than VR. To do AR right, you need to solve all the problems of VR, then make the headset transparent, make the entire system portable, and give it the ability to understand the world around the user.
Pokemon GO is a cited example of the success of AR, but literally all the AR does is render your Pokemon over the camera feed, using the gyro to keep it mostly in the same orientation. It does nothing to make it feel like it's actually in the world. It moves as your perspective moves, and its perceived scale changes wildly. That doesn't even deserve to be called AR.
Most players also seem to turn the AR off, too, so it seems weird to attribute success to the concept. It's a gimmick that makes for cool concept videos like the one pictured in the article, but it's not nearly as interesting in reality.
1. The experience itself is there and "real" in a way it hasn't been before. The issues seem to be those of the hardware being too big, expensive and wired. All things that are rapidly being improved on in general computing and crucially not just niche VR (for example the awesome display advances driven by mobile phones are pulled into VR headsets).
2. We're definitely still in the "figuring things out" on the software side. An absolutely fascinating video is this walkthrough of all the UX attempts that a developer tried for getting guns to work and feel good in VR.
And everything with VR is this way - there's a half dozen different movement methods with different quirks that people are trying, there's tons of optimization and framerate and interactions attempts. Heck even the controllers are seeing a rapid evolution (stick like the HTC Vive -> Oculus Touch -> Knuckle Controllers).
I've been saying for several years that VR was the next 3D TV. I got a lot of hate messages for that. One "thought leader" threatened to ban me from his blog. I wasn't wrong.
I've tried most of the VR headsets from Jaron Lanier's original rig to the HTC Vibe. Over that range, the tracking is far better, the resolution is somewhat better, the headset clunkyness is slightly better, and there's still no killer app. It's great for FPS games. Rollercoaster sims are fun once or twice. There are virtual worlds; Second Life and High Fidelity support VR headsets. But virtual worlds never caught on, even though today they could run in a browser. Then what?
Augmented reality has potential, but the alignment with the real world has to be very good, it has to work in the real world, not rooms prepped for it, and it has to cost a lot less. Those are technical problems that can be solved. Then you could play Pokemon Go, so there's a killer app ready to roll. Whether the borghead thing will fly socially remains to be seen. Remember the glasshole problem.
Here comes the "I told you so" crowd. The main difference to 3D TV is that 3D TV barely added anything of value to the customer. VR actually does offer a lot of value, but is bogged down by its current technical limitations.
> But virtual worlds never caught on
Maybe in its odd-ball Second Life version, but WoW and Minecraft would like a word with that statement.
Back when mobile phones were new, people made disparaging comments when eg a businessman would take a call in public. And there was a trope in comedy where people would pretend to take a call just to show off the fact they had a phone.
I mean, none of the existing devices for VR were ever expected to be massive consumer successes. The Android standalone HMDs coming out Q4 this year are going to be the first VR devices I'd personally consider as possibly being appealing to the mass market.
My personal criteria for a device one could consider a referendum on VR if it fails in the market:
- It needs to be at a price point akin to a tablet computer
- It needs to be able to run for more than an hour without overheating
- It needs full 6dof head tracking and ideally 6dof controller tracking with motion to photon latency comparable to vive/rift
- It needs to be comfortable to wear for an hour for most people
- It needs to deliver a graphical experience on par with something like a PS2 or PS3
- It needs to be portable and wireless so it can be passed around and shown off to others easily
- Most importantly, it needs to be simple to set up and use. Ie, no external computer, no wires, no mounting of sensors on walls, no need to plug or unplug devices before/after use, etc.
Personally I do not think "simple to set up and use" is the most important part there: it's the price.
I would love to play around with VR, but I'm not going to shell out $600+ for such a device when I don't know how much software it'll have in the future.
At the time of writing this comment, I found out that the Oculus is $400, which is quite a bit better (I thought it was $600-$900 still). But I still don't know what future game/app support looks like for it. My gut says it is in a downward trend, so I won't be buying into it until I see them being more popular among e.g. Youtubers etc.
It's pretty sad to me that there's more excitement for Snapchat filters than for VR. Also, I'm getting absolutely fed up with the term "social". People are attention junkies, that's what it is. It's not "social". They're hooked on likes and instant gratification.
I think VR might need something akin to the arcade halls of early video games to get people interested - a place where people can try the tech, but as a much more well-rounded experience, if someone went ahead and created something people actually wanted to try, but maybe couldn't afford, I think there'd be a market for this. Just not yet in the personal consumer market. Not yet.
I spent 5 years building a company in this space in the 90's, and eventually gave up. I know people still in the space, true believers of a sort I could not emulate (having people working for you focuses the mind on actually making money pretty well, at least for me). I stayed out of this cycle because honestly it doesn't look to me like anything significant has changed. Yes, the technology is better, but fundamentally the problem is not the technology, it's the applications and the fact that a significant portion of consumers only spend time in front of a powerful computer at work (and many don't even do that anymore).
One more generation of hardware might get us there, if we can somehow keep Moore's law going.
I suspect VR may go away again (although it's lasted longer than i thought it would). When it comes back for the third round, it's more likely to stick. Enough people have been exposed to it this round, that I think there may be compelling content when it comes back. And ten years better hardware would help a lot.
After injuring the muscles in my back and shoulders, the only thing I've wanted VR for wasn't even the VR itself, but just an HMD for computing while laying down. It's hard to imagine how difficult it is just to sit or stand at a desk till you injure the muscles that keep everything upright.
The next step ideally would be a keyboard that comes with special gloves, or a pair of finger tip RFIDs or blutooths, one for each hand, that can be detected by some sensor on the keyboard, which can be used to calculate finger position in relation to the keyboard and display a virtual version of that on the bottom of the screen. These couple of peripherals shouldn't be too expensive to implement and bring to market I imagine.
Touch typing is great and all, and I don't really look at the keyboard while typing directly, but for some odd reason, just seeing my hands barely in the bottom of my vision box makes all the difference in my ability to type accurately. I turn the lights off and I can't type for shit. Maybe it has to do with re-orienting my hands to the keyboard. As I type this I notice every once in a while after pausing that I briefly look down at the keyboard and then back up.
Anyways, that was a small tangent, but VR should really focus on certain accessibility aspects going forward.
I too found that I needed to see the keys. But while there are glove startups, and Leap Motion hand tracking can be usable, it's much easier to just see the keyboard.
I use camera-passthrough AR on a Vive, with a ducktaped-on camera. The Vive's own camera is too low resolution (it's both fisheye, and bandwidth limited to 6?? x 4?? pixels). Other people have mounted a camera above the keyboard, and inserted only the keyboard image into their otherwise VR environment.
Another option is to get an AR HMD. There's Hololens. And a "like Google Cardboard, but for AR" kickstarter? I've not been following the area.
I've heard, but not tried, that one can make some use of seeing down past your nose on the Rift.
So I've not found keyboard use a problem. But the low angular resolution has been.
I get something like 40 lines of readable text without having to move my head. The Rift/Vive panels are low-resolution per eye, and are PenTile (so it's really even less), and you're only able to use the center third or half. That's not much realestate. But, if you're ok with that, you can do RDP... there are youtube videos. I've heard people who commonly work in small terminal windows can be happy.
The new Windows VR HMDs (available now as developer versions) are said to be higher resolution, with perhaps poorer optics, but I've not tried them yet.
AR HMD's have narrower fields of view, and thus higher angular resolution. So Hololens et al might be an alternative, but I've not tried that.
Depending on your constraints, another option might a projector - projecting on a ceiling, wall, or suspended screen.
Incidentally, I've noticed this same thing when trying to touch-type with a VR headset on. Even though I consider myself pretty good at touch typing, and even fairly accurate at touch-typing with my eyes closed, it's very difficult to type while in VR.
Similarly, when I'm wearing a headset and I need to grab something off my desk quickly, and don't want to take off the headset, it can result in a lot of fumbling around. Interestingly enough, I find it helps to close my eyes, and I actually find things more quickly and accurately.
So, even just a bit of video passthrough of the keyboard, or an in-VR visual excuse for why the keyboard & your hands are occluded from view, might be enough to solve touch-typing in VR.
Everyone is focused on at home gaming, but the real market for VR is in attractions - mainly theme parks. Six Flags has been able to take really old and new rides and turn them into completely different experiences with essentially just a cell phone.
You also have a LOT of haunts popping up that are VR escape rooms. Universal Orlando used it in one of their upcharge experiences during Halloween Horror Nights last year.
There are also some fitness programs starting out that use vr as a way to help motivate people who would normally not want to work out.
So yes, at home vr never really took off. I don't think anyone honestly believed it would at the current price point/computer requirements.
VR is very nice, when it's in the booth, and they already set it up, and they have a working game already, and there is only one person a head of me in line, and I can only experience it for a couple minutes because someone else is behind me waiting.
Try to play a vr game at home with two other people and one device.
A badly written, badly argued, and boringly long article that boils down to "I don't like VR, I lack the imagination to come up with any use-case besides (western) consumer entertainment, so it is useless and therefore dead."
No mention of Hololens, which is unfortunate - and shows how poorly researched this verbal diarrhea actually is.
I own a GearVR, and have played with a Vive, Oculus, and PS4 VR. Of those, the only real immersive experience I've had was playing Minecraft on the GearVR. Yes, the resolution is low, but Minecraft is pretty low-resolution to begin with.
The key seems to be the lack of wires and freedom of movement. I have a SteelSeries bluetooth controller, and I sat in a swivel chair to play.
I agree with the article on the whole - there is no compelling use case for VR as it exists today, or as it will exist in the near future. Higher resolution will make some uses better (e.g. porn), but it's still going to be very limited-use.
I can't wait to get my hands on a HoloLens. I think AR is going to be a killer tech, though I don't think it will really hit "mainstream" until direct retinal projection or a similar technology is widely available. It's still not socially acceptable to wear an HMD in public.
Always not a fan of VR. The biggest issue here: Why do I need them. The media and some evangelists are selling VR like it is THE new interface for everything and anything, but they cannot really even convince people with their own demo out of the scope of some basic gaming and prototyping.
The whole headset too big and uncomfortable point is true, but it comes next at failing to sell the technology to the mess with a legit reason. Yes it is cooler and more immersive, but does this advantage outweigh that much that I should ditch my smartphone and embrace the hype? I am afraid this would come to AI as well, while the media is fear-mongering over human being taken over by terminators-like robots, people out there might just not feel there is a need of democratization of AI at all.
> Millions of Americans donned a wacky-looking headset to get a glimpse of a different reality this week. No, not a virtual reality headset — these people were looking up at the sky through protective goggles to witness a total eclipse of the sun which cut a shadowy swathe across middle America.
Oh my.
I'm sure you know the old saying: when you read a news report about something you happen to be an expert in, you'll likely find that they got it very wrong. And then you'll wonder what else they get wrong.
I'm an eclipse veteran, and I certainly hope millions of people did not wear protective goggles to witness the total eclipse. Because they wouldn't have seen a thing.
You need eye protection for any partial eclipse, including the partial phases before and after totality. But not during totality. The solar corona is only about as bright as a full moon, and "eclipse glasses" would block it out completely.
Water under the bridge now, at least until the next total eclipse! But when a writer leads off a news piece with something so far from the mark, why should I believe anything they write?
Maybe I'm being overly judgmental. After all, the eclipse comment was supposed to be just a clever lead-in for the article. But it was so wrong I just didn't have the patience to read the rest of the piece.
You discredited the article because it said people used protective glasses to watch the eclipse?
I'm not an "eclipse veteran", I don't know anything about it, but my feed was nothing but eclipse glasses for three whole days. I would say people wore glasses.
If you are an eclipse veteran (what does it mean btw) then you should know that you need the protective glasses to enjoy the eclipse in all the phases.
You don't need them just during the total phase, but if you don't use them before I can't imagine what you are able to see in that phase.
The article is absolutely correct.
There were millions of Americans looking at the sky through protective glasses to enjoy the eclipse.
This, and the fact that current VR headgear is less like a pair of lightweight eclipse-viewing glasses, and more like the two pairs of laser safety goggles, one pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses, and one 10-stop ND filter that I had to hold in front of all of those because I didn't have the proper eclipse-viewing glasses.
As you anticipated, the author's understanding of VR/AR is quite poor. I was surprised to see this on front page HN. I also think the thesis is wrong, but one could at least make an informed argument for it. But this wasn't that.
the fact that acceleration = instant nausea makes VR pretty much doomed imho unless there is some magic anti-nausea injection being developed that would come in the mail with the thing. Not saying that games can't be built that don't give nausea, but severely limiting acceleration (including turning) really constrains the design space. Only being able to teleport or stay in place or at constant speed is really poor
[+] [-] danielbln|8 years ago|reply
However, I'm still as excited for VR as I was in the beginning in regards to the technology. Give me a lighter headset, 100% wireless and great handtracking and finally some long, immersive games (can be ports, that's fine for me) and I'm ready to shell out money again.
As it stands today though, my VR hype is on hibernation until the next gen rolls around.
[+] [-] m_mueller|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rubicon33|8 years ago|reply
As I see it, there are some technical (even physiological?) hurdles, that they need to overcome.
1) "Teleport to move" is horrible, and sucks the feeling of immersion right out of the VR experience. Sadly, true "walking" with horizontal movement without accompanying angular momentum causes nausea in most people - hence teleporting as a solution. This as I understand it is a physiological system that is at odds with the VR world and while not everyone experiences it most do.
2) The resolution. It's hard to feel immersed in the world when it's so blurry. This is especially true for VR. VRs selling point IS immersion which IMO is an all-or-nothing experience. A blurry view detracts from feeling immersed in the world.
[+] [-] ImSkeptical|8 years ago|reply
The game Fantastic Contraption was illuminating for me. I had played many tens of hours of the original. In VR I was amazed at how it looked and felt. Solving the first couple challenges was a lot of fun - just watching the machines run was great.
I started to realize a flaw though. A machine I could build in seconds by stretching my fingers a few inches across a keyboard and mouse took ten or twenty times as long in VR, and involved squatting, walking, grabbing, holding, etc.
There's a Perry Bible Fellowship comic of a child in a VR suit, clutching his simulated wounds while saying "Cool!" That comic is similar to my experience. Do we really want to experience things like this? (Tedium or pain)
[+] [-] kromem|8 years ago|reply
I really do enjoy VR when I get around to playing it, but all I have is presence, but in a world that not particularly beautiful.
My favorite VR title is Elite: Dangerous, but while it's absolutely beautiful outside of VR, in VR it's rather....blurry. When in-VR had the detail of out-of-VR, the presence may be more meaningful. (But that'll be a while).
[+] [-] 52-6F-62|8 years ago|reply
With some of that porting/emulation software I was able to play some SteamVR and other games. As a control I just used an Xbox 360 USB controller and the results surprised me.
Now working with a G Cardboard set isn't fun for very long, but the way that a few games translated was surprisingly good, as long as you're happy to not have the full experience. I found the headset was a lot of fun as a change of perspective.
The games I recall in particular being pretty good were GTA V and Skyrim (though I think Skyrim had a little bit of a perspective offset issue, but I didn't really tweak it). For native VR apps I tried ADR1FT (http://store.steampowered.com/app/300060/ADR1FT/) which was pretty good as well.
I imagine trying this with a proper headset work work far better and be more comfortable than my experience, but like I said I haven't worked with one.
A conclusion I made though was that I really didn't mind using the controller as I would on a console.
[+] [-] djsumdog|8 years ago|reply
They're not as advanced as a Oculus/Vive, but they can function without needing to setup an entire room.
[+] [-] Taek|8 years ago|reply
If we can figure out how to make game worlds bigger, perhaps even with AR, then we will probably have a lot more interesting things to do.
[+] [-] Yen|8 years ago|reply
I don't think this will be the case.
A few decades ago, you could experience VR of a similar nature as you can today ... if you happened to have an in with a nearby university research lab, with a setup space with carefully calibrated sensors, hundreds of thousands of dollars of computers, projectors, and other equipment.
Now-a-days, you can experience that VR with about $2,000 worth of computer + headset, and about as much setup difficulty as a home theater system. This is _massively_ more accessible than it was.
It's certainly not perfect. $2,000 is still a lot of money, and 550 grams is a lot of weight to put on your face.
But, even if it's not a smashing consumer success at the moment, the number of developers, artists, and other creatives who have access to the tools of VR development, and the size of the potential audience, are several orders of magnitude larger than they were just a decade ago.
And, really, if the biggest complaints about VR headsets are that they're too heavy, too expensive, and they look dorky, then I'd say VR's already won, one way or another. Technology has had this weird habit of getting smaller and cheaper.
The hype may cool off, but I don't think there's going to be much slowing of developer behavior or consumer behavior in the near future, and new headset models coming out will just slowly ramp up enthusiasm.
(1) but seriously, this author is really really concerned about how un-cool the headset makes you look, as if people staring intently at a movie screen, or play, or classical music concert are that much more photogenic.
[+] [-] amitt|8 years ago|reply
That being said, this article and most of the comments here are taking a singular worldview: consumer-focused VR for a western market. VR is a tool, not an industry. Context on use is required to assess traction.
VR for B2B or enterprises can make money today and doesn't require mass-consumer adoption. If you make someone 10x more effective at their job (tools for sales people: OssoVR) or onboard employees faster (training: STRIVR), you can overcome the cost and rough edges on the hardware and have an ROI to justify the cost of the system.
Walmart, for example, recently announced they are using VR to power their training centers. https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/31/walmart-is-bringing-vr-ins...
We're actively investing in VR for training companies and I recently did an overview of what separates out the best companies in this space: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2017/08/24/ti...
In Asia (and increasingly in the west), VR-arcades are going to be how most consumers first experience high-end PC VR. Culturally, people there are already used to going to internet cafe's to use computers by the hour and seek out 3rd spaces. VR-by-the-hour rooms fit this mold. Additionally, the short length of most VR experiences makes it easy to have a 15-20 minute session and not be disappointed by the lack of content. IMAX is starting to open multiple VR centers and the word within the industry is that the VR Zones opened by Namco in Tokyo are currently profitable.
More info on this here: https://medium.com/@amitt/vr-will-be-huge-in-china-41de0c758....
(disclosure: we're investors in STRIVR and OssoVR)
[+] [-] mncharity|8 years ago|reply
Even narrower than that: game VR; on HMDs without (usable) cameras; using particular software stacks.
The usual way I use my Vive, is on an old laptop with integrated graphics, doing ducktaped-on camera-passthrough AR, at 30 fps, in coffeehouses and conference rooms... Let's just say that many people are so focused on the gaming market, that they're unable to see anything else.
I've been through the mass adoption of PC's, the internet and web, cell phones, tablets and touch phones, and now here's consumer VR/AR. I've kind of given up hope of seeing intelligent analysis in the popular press during transitions.
Still, I was surprised by just how bad this article was. Isn't TC based in SV? I'd have thought the author could find people to do a sanity check. Misconceptions like drawing a hard VR vs AR distinction suggests that didn't happen. One can certainly make an argument for a slow takeoff. Even for a very slow and multi-phase one. But this article wasn't that. Perhaps I've just been unlucky to see this post before HN buries it.
[+] [-] yborg|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rapsey|8 years ago|reply
I would have thought AR google glass type devices would have been more versatile and popular than full VR for enterprise. No?
[+] [-] dcw303|8 years ago|reply
I think it was McLuhan who said that each new medium begins by imitating the old. e.g - The first television programs were basically radio broadcasts with an image of a talking head. It took a while for tv to break out and capitalize on the features of the new medium.
VR was always going to be measured by gaming. But its well-documented problem was that a very large subsection of games (1st person) have a considerable barf factor for a considerable section of the customer base.
So VR may have had great future potential for new avenues in gaming, but it was hamstrung by its weakenesses for existing games.
People got too caught up with possibilites to objectively look at how sucky it was right now.
[+] [-] aaron-lebo|8 years ago|reply
VR thus far has been a bit of a step back. Devs have for a long time been under the impression that tech > gameplay (which is dumb when you think about it), and now a lot of devs are under the impression that doing something in VR excuses games not getting the basics right. The fun part is the studios who are used throwing 100 artists at a job pumping out the highest detail models, but that doesn't work so well, so they're either gonna go back to the basics or keep floundering.
The best games I've played in VR have been ports, and they're just as enjoyable without VR and you aren't hot and sweaty after 5 minutes.
[+] [-] inDigiNeous|8 years ago|reply
This will take some time, but once we get there, I will feel we will find some exciting things .. working on one such experience myself :)
[+] [-] blubb-fish|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wbillingsley|8 years ago|reply
- Wanting to slouch on the couch without it affecting your gameplay
- Wanting to pick up your cup of tea or soda in slow moments in the game
- Wanting to hear & see if other members of the family have got home
- Not wanting to look like an idiot with a thing on your head making strange in-game movements
- Feeling antisocial because as you only have one head-set others in the room can't see what you're doing (making it feel antisocial to go into that world)
We're pretty good at getting "immersed" in things without VR, so I wonder if the immersion gains just aren't worth the social & convenience costs (as well as the real costs) to most people. A little like even if GOT was on at the local IMAX, the vast majority of people would probably still watch it on their smaller screens at home. Maybe even on their tiny phones and iPads...
[+] [-] DiThi|8 years ago|reply
You can easily play some games sitting, but still you can't do no exercise. That's a plus: a friend I played frequently with has lost more weight playing than with any other method. (for most people exercising isn't useful for losing weight but it has many benefits for the brain)
> - Wanting to pick up your cup of tea or soda in slow moments in the game
I've done that. With a bottle or a cup with a straw. The vive camera makes it easy.
> - Wanting to hear & see if other members of the family have got home
It depends on which headset are you using and how much noise people makes coming home. I usually do hear them.
> - Not wanting to look like an idiot with a thing on your head making strange in-game movements
> - Feeling antisocial because as you only have one head-set others in the room can't see what you're doing (making it feel antisocial to go into that world)
People _can_ see what are you doing with a correctly positioned screen. In any case those problems are temporary and sounds easy to solve. I'm not very social myself but I want to make a SteamVR "intercommunicator" to talk with people IRL without losing immersion (or maybe even making it more immersive).
[+] [-] cafeoh|8 years ago|reply
- I already do a lot of sitting VR when tired/feet hurt. You're not gonna play the same game but a lot of the best experiences (cockpit based) are better sitting anyway.
- I do that aswell but arguably it's more precarious. I advise investing in a tumbler/thermos :)
- I exclusively use open headphones, the ones on the oculus are too and I can hear if someone is even standing in the corridor looking at me from the accoustic change. Closed headphones make me feel very uncomfortable and antisocial anyway.
- Heh, I'm playing, don't care about my appearance.
- On this point especially I must strongly disagree. Nothing has brought people around my gaming setup more than a VR HMD. And every game I played properly showed the player's view in a separate window and handled audio mirroring perfectly. Some games even allow for different spectator cameras, or smoothed up motions.
We lack the deep games we're accustomed to in traditional gaming. For myself and many, one of the best experience has been Doom 3 BFG VR. Tells you how desperately we need a proper "full" game with good mc support. Once those start coming out I expect the whole experience to be vastly different.
[+] [-] danielbln|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamesrcole|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slavik81|8 years ago|reply
Pokemon GO is a cited example of the success of AR, but literally all the AR does is render your Pokemon over the camera feed, using the gyro to keep it mostly in the same orientation. It does nothing to make it feel like it's actually in the world. It moves as your perspective moves, and its perceived scale changes wildly. That doesn't even deserve to be called AR.
Most players also seem to turn the AR off, too, so it seems weird to attribute success to the concept. It's a gimmick that makes for cool concept videos like the one pictured in the article, but it's not nearly as interesting in reality.
[+] [-] Raphael|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] michaelbuckbee|8 years ago|reply
1. The experience itself is there and "real" in a way it hasn't been before. The issues seem to be those of the hardware being too big, expensive and wired. All things that are rapidly being improved on in general computing and crucially not just niche VR (for example the awesome display advances driven by mobile phones are pulled into VR headsets).
2. We're definitely still in the "figuring things out" on the software side. An absolutely fascinating video is this walkthrough of all the UX attempts that a developer tried for getting guns to work and feel good in VR.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYrkXK3V2ik&feature=youtu.be
And everything with VR is this way - there's a half dozen different movement methods with different quirks that people are trying, there's tons of optimization and framerate and interactions attempts. Heck even the controllers are seeing a rapid evolution (stick like the HTC Vive -> Oculus Touch -> Knuckle Controllers).
[+] [-] Animats|8 years ago|reply
I've tried most of the VR headsets from Jaron Lanier's original rig to the HTC Vibe. Over that range, the tracking is far better, the resolution is somewhat better, the headset clunkyness is slightly better, and there's still no killer app. It's great for FPS games. Rollercoaster sims are fun once or twice. There are virtual worlds; Second Life and High Fidelity support VR headsets. But virtual worlds never caught on, even though today they could run in a browser. Then what?
Augmented reality has potential, but the alignment with the real world has to be very good, it has to work in the real world, not rooms prepped for it, and it has to cost a lot less. Those are technical problems that can be solved. Then you could play Pokemon Go, so there's a killer app ready to roll. Whether the borghead thing will fly socially remains to be seen. Remember the glasshole problem.
[+] [-] danielbln|8 years ago|reply
> But virtual worlds never caught on
Maybe in its odd-ball Second Life version, but WoW and Minecraft would like a word with that statement.
[+] [-] hnzix|8 years ago|reply
Back when mobile phones were new, people made disparaging comments when eg a businessman would take a call in public. And there was a trope in comedy where people would pretend to take a call just to show off the fact they had a phone.
The technology will become normalized.
[+] [-] jamesrom|8 years ago|reply
We are in the early days of real consumer VR technology. There is a lot of low hanging fruit to improve VR, not just in hardware, but in software too.
The technology will continue to iterate and improve. There's no stopping it.
[+] [-] k__|8 years ago|reply
Sure, your 3DVR games suck at the moment and the hardware of the high end devices is much too expensive.
But many people are rather okay with watching VR videos with Google Cardboard like constructs.
[+] [-] gfodor|8 years ago|reply
My personal criteria for a device one could consider a referendum on VR if it fails in the market:
- It needs to be at a price point akin to a tablet computer
- It needs to be able to run for more than an hour without overheating
- It needs full 6dof head tracking and ideally 6dof controller tracking with motion to photon latency comparable to vive/rift
- It needs to be comfortable to wear for an hour for most people
- It needs to deliver a graphical experience on par with something like a PS2 or PS3
- It needs to be portable and wireless so it can be passed around and shown off to others easily
- Most importantly, it needs to be simple to set up and use. Ie, no external computer, no wires, no mounting of sensors on walls, no need to plug or unplug devices before/after use, etc.
[+] [-] slimsag|8 years ago|reply
I would love to play around with VR, but I'm not going to shell out $600+ for such a device when I don't know how much software it'll have in the future.
At the time of writing this comment, I found out that the Oculus is $400, which is quite a bit better (I thought it was $600-$900 still). But I still don't know what future game/app support looks like for it. My gut says it is in a downward trend, so I won't be buying into it until I see them being more popular among e.g. Youtubers etc.
[+] [-] hnnsj|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bananicorn|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sulam|8 years ago|reply
One more generation of hardware might get us there, if we can somehow keep Moore's law going.
[+] [-] toast0|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RandomInteger4|8 years ago|reply
The next step ideally would be a keyboard that comes with special gloves, or a pair of finger tip RFIDs or blutooths, one for each hand, that can be detected by some sensor on the keyboard, which can be used to calculate finger position in relation to the keyboard and display a virtual version of that on the bottom of the screen. These couple of peripherals shouldn't be too expensive to implement and bring to market I imagine.
Touch typing is great and all, and I don't really look at the keyboard while typing directly, but for some odd reason, just seeing my hands barely in the bottom of my vision box makes all the difference in my ability to type accurately. I turn the lights off and I can't type for shit. Maybe it has to do with re-orienting my hands to the keyboard. As I type this I notice every once in a while after pausing that I briefly look down at the keyboard and then back up.
Anyways, that was a small tangent, but VR should really focus on certain accessibility aspects going forward.
[+] [-] mncharity|8 years ago|reply
I use camera-passthrough AR on a Vive, with a ducktaped-on camera. The Vive's own camera is too low resolution (it's both fisheye, and bandwidth limited to 6?? x 4?? pixels). Other people have mounted a camera above the keyboard, and inserted only the keyboard image into their otherwise VR environment.
Another option is to get an AR HMD. There's Hololens. And a "like Google Cardboard, but for AR" kickstarter? I've not been following the area.
I've heard, but not tried, that one can make some use of seeing down past your nose on the Rift.
So I've not found keyboard use a problem. But the low angular resolution has been.
I get something like 40 lines of readable text without having to move my head. The Rift/Vive panels are low-resolution per eye, and are PenTile (so it's really even less), and you're only able to use the center third or half. That's not much realestate. But, if you're ok with that, you can do RDP... there are youtube videos. I've heard people who commonly work in small terminal windows can be happy.
The new Windows VR HMDs (available now as developer versions) are said to be higher resolution, with perhaps poorer optics, but I've not tried them yet.
AR HMD's have narrower fields of view, and thus higher angular resolution. So Hololens et al might be an alternative, but I've not tried that.
Depending on your constraints, another option might a projector - projecting on a ceiling, wall, or suspended screen.
[+] [-] Yen|8 years ago|reply
Similarly, when I'm wearing a headset and I need to grab something off my desk quickly, and don't want to take off the headset, it can result in a lot of fumbling around. Interestingly enough, I find it helps to close my eyes, and I actually find things more quickly and accurately.
So, even just a bit of video passthrough of the keyboard, or an in-VR visual excuse for why the keyboard & your hands are occluded from view, might be enough to solve touch-typing in VR.
[+] [-] dawnerd|8 years ago|reply
You also have a LOT of haunts popping up that are VR escape rooms. Universal Orlando used it in one of their upcharge experiences during Halloween Horror Nights last year.
There are also some fitness programs starting out that use vr as a way to help motivate people who would normally not want to work out.
So yes, at home vr never really took off. I don't think anyone honestly believed it would at the current price point/computer requirements.
[+] [-] foxfired|8 years ago|reply
Try to play a vr game at home with two other people and one device.
[+] [-] mdekkers|8 years ago|reply
No mention of Hololens, which is unfortunate - and shows how poorly researched this verbal diarrhea actually is.
[+] [-] LyndsySimon|8 years ago|reply
The key seems to be the lack of wires and freedom of movement. I have a SteelSeries bluetooth controller, and I sat in a swivel chair to play.
I agree with the article on the whole - there is no compelling use case for VR as it exists today, or as it will exist in the near future. Higher resolution will make some uses better (e.g. porn), but it's still going to be very limited-use.
I can't wait to get my hands on a HoloLens. I think AR is going to be a killer tech, though I don't think it will really hit "mainstream" until direct retinal projection or a similar technology is widely available. It's still not socially acceptable to wear an HMD in public.
[+] [-] tanilama|8 years ago|reply
The whole headset too big and uncomfortable point is true, but it comes next at failing to sell the technology to the mess with a legit reason. Yes it is cooler and more immersive, but does this advantage outweigh that much that I should ditch my smartphone and embrace the hype? I am afraid this would come to AI as well, while the media is fear-mongering over human being taken over by terminators-like robots, people out there might just not feel there is a need of democratization of AI at all.
[+] [-] Stratoscope|8 years ago|reply
Oh my.
I'm sure you know the old saying: when you read a news report about something you happen to be an expert in, you'll likely find that they got it very wrong. And then you'll wonder what else they get wrong.
I'm an eclipse veteran, and I certainly hope millions of people did not wear protective goggles to witness the total eclipse. Because they wouldn't have seen a thing.
You need eye protection for any partial eclipse, including the partial phases before and after totality. But not during totality. The solar corona is only about as bright as a full moon, and "eclipse glasses" would block it out completely.
Water under the bridge now, at least until the next total eclipse! But when a writer leads off a news piece with something so far from the mark, why should I believe anything they write?
Maybe I'm being overly judgmental. After all, the eclipse comment was supposed to be just a clever lead-in for the article. But it was so wrong I just didn't have the patience to read the rest of the piece.
[+] [-] et1337|8 years ago|reply
I'm not an "eclipse veteran", I don't know anything about it, but my feed was nothing but eclipse glasses for three whole days. I would say people wore glasses.
[+] [-] tigershark|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CamperBob2|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mncharity|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] make3|8 years ago|reply